


A Careful Application of Voidfish

by Jairephix



Series: A More Careful Pen [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: AU as heck, Angus is a Blupjeans Baby, Implied miscarriage, Not Canon Compliant, julia lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairephix/pseuds/Jairephix
Summary: Lucretia was careful. She wasn't going to lose her family again, not if she could help it.





	1. Chapter 1

The Director sighed, placing his hands on the wide oak desk before him. “Boys, I had a job for you, but then the quest giver…” Another sigh slipped loose from the gnome, causing the scribe behind him to give pause. Lucretia waited, quill hovering, waiting for his next line. “I hate to do this, but one of our own has gone rogue. Brian...Brian went and kidnapped Gundren Rockseeker, with the intention of dragging him to a cave north of Phandalin.”

Merle grunted, recognizing the name. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pinching the cartilage hard enough to leave red marks as his hand dropped away. “Wave Echo Cave. Gundren’s Hekuba’s second or third cousin. They have a mining operation out that way, but last I knew, we they didn’t really have the mine up and running since Cyrus disappeared.”

“Brian? Really?” Magnus picked nervously at the fresh nail polish on his fingers. “Isn’t he getting married soon? Why would he go and do that?”

“That, we don’t know. We sent a messenger down to get more details from Gundren about this job he supposedly had for you, only to discover rumors.” Davenport shifted to stand, walking around the desk. The sharp silver and blue uniform made him look like nobility, giving him the air of a man who knew how to lead. Which was good, Lucretia thought to herself, since he was in charge. “Eye witnesses say that a small horde of goblins held off any would-be help as a bugbear, and I quote, ‘done gone bonked him on his head’ while a drow matching Brian’s description overlooked it all. Only a few saw what direction they went, and some of the town’s hunters said it was towards Wave Echo Cave. Rumors also declared that Gundren’s job may have been about some sort of secret treasure. He was, apparently, quite bad at not bragging about it.”

“Sounds like mountain dwarf to me,” the cleric grumbled. 

Taako rolled his eyes, inspecting his nails out of boredom. “So now we’re going to rescue him from kidnappers. And you’re only sending the three of us?”

Davenport took to marching back and forth in front of his desk. “I’d send others with you, but Barry’s got his son to keep an eye on, and if Angus is left unsupervised with Leon, that poor man is going to have a meltdown. He’s so bad with kids. Carey is busy with a different mission, and we sent Killian on ahead as a scout. For someone of her size, she’s fantastic at stealth.”

“That’s cuz of Carey,” Magnus stage-whispered to the dwarf and elf. Taako snorted in amusement. “Best rogue ever.”

“In any case...with the number of jobs popping up all over the place lately, we’re starting to get stretched thin. This is the best I’ve got for you...so I’m counting on you to rescue that contact, and...try to take Brian in alive. I’d hate to lose him, and I don’t want to explain to his fiance why he’s dead.” The three nodded. “You’re to report to the bay in 15 minutes. Gear up, get whatever supplies you need, report to Avi.”

\---

Two days later, the trio came back with Killian, all heads held low. In short, this mission had been a disaster.

Lucretia took a moment to look at the four of them, exhausted and covered in scratches, burns, and if she had to guess, out of spell-slots and supplies. But still, it was required that they check in, mission debrief, and only then could they go and recuperate. Sure, it was hard, but it was the only way to get as many details out of them as possible. After sleep, who knew how easily they would forget things?

“Let me get The Director,” she offered softly, pointing to some chairs across the room. “Just, try not to fall asleep.” Magnus nodded, the most awake of them all. Taako looked ready to just collapse on the floor, struggling to hold onto something in his hands. She couldn’t see it clearly, as Killian and Merle moved in front of him, and she decided it was better to get Davenport while they were all still awake.

At the news that they had returned, the gnome hurried out, leaving her to adjust her books and inkwell just so.

“Well?”

“I hate to say this, Cap’nport, but we done fucked up.” Magnus tried to hold back a yawn, and Lucretia almost snapped her quill in half. _It’s reflex, he’s been saying it for a couple of years, ever since we got the uniforms for the Bureau, it’s fine._ She took a deep breath, steadying herself as Magnus continued on.

“We convinced Klaarg, that’s the bugbear, to fight the goblins. And then we ran. It was. Messy. But then we went through some sort of jerk-off tunnel--”

“Magnus, please never use those words again.” The gnome shuddered. “Continue.”

“Yes sir, sorry. Um. So, then we found Killian all covered in spiderwebbing, and we...I hate to tell you this, but we...Brian started to fight us. Saying we were there to...I don’t really know, get the treasure he wanted, I guess? And he almost killed Gundren, and...honestly Brian wouldn’t...I’m sorry sir.”

The room fell silent for several moments. “Lucretia, make sure we send his fiance our condolences, and offer to handle funeral expenses.”

“Yes, Sir.” She took a moment to note that down in her journal, then waited for the next part of the encounter.

“Um. But, then we rescued Gundren, and he said since we were there anyway, we should go get the Rockseeker fortunes, but then the vault had just this black glassy lining, and a silver glove-gauntlet thing, and then…” Magnus dropped his face into his hands. “Gundren just...went mad. I...I don’t even remember most of it. We were in such a rush to get back to Phandalin and then it was...it was just… _gone_.”

Lucretia paused again, heart racing with fear. The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. Lup’s. She had gone to hide it...then, what had…

“We brought it back.” The wizard patted his satchel, where the sound of muffled clinking metal shook. “And, there was also this janked up skeleton in red? All spooky and shit, turned to dust, but there was this...umbrella and I can cast spells out of it, I guess?” Taako waggled it around. “Pretty fuckin’ weird, just a magic umbrella.”

Davenport turned to her. “This is...worrisome. An entire trade town, gone. I’ve never heard of a magic artefact like that before…”

“I. Um. I have, sir.” She tried to keep herself calm, glancing over at the Umbra Staff. They had found Lup, at long last. She hadn’t meant for her lies to him and Barry to be true. “There are very powerful Relics that caused...great wars. Their history was stricken from records, except for very very few, to keep people from trying to seek them out.”

Davenport frowned, stroking his mustache absentmindedly. “I’ll make sure Bluejeans and Leon get started on researching those. If they’re that dangerous, it’ll be worth it for us to destroy them. Can I leave getting all that in order to you?”

Lucretia nodded, using her notes to hide how badly her hands were shaking. She hadn’t meant for them to find it all again. “Of course, Sir.”

“Fantastic. Alright, the four of you, I want you to go to your quarters, rest up, bathe, eat, all that. The moment you’re conscious again, head down to the Artificer’s Quarters. I’ll have the tokens ready for you for the machine, as well as your standard pay. I want Leon and Barry to look into on that umbrella of yours. That gauntlet, though...Taako, you said you have it with you?”

The wizard nodded, moving just to remove the satchel in the practiced ease of getting it off around his hat. He held it out to The Director, who took it in an instant. “I’ll get this locked away in my private quarters. There’s enough security systems in place that it should be a devil of a time, even for our best.” The elf nodded, not trusting the mischievous twinkle in the gnome’s eye. The stories of those who tried to prank Davenport were whispered about in the same way people told ghost stories at campfires.

“Alright, team. You’re dismissed.”

\---

“Uncle Taako!” The little half-elf came barrelling across the shared research space, throwing himself into Taako’s arms.

“Hey there, pumpkin. How’re your studies going?”

Angus beamed up at him, showing off the little gap between his front teeth. “Really good! I’ve got Mage Hand down really well, and Dad’s been teaching me Magic Missile!”

“That’s fantastic.” Taako squeezed him hard in a hug for just a moment. “I gotta go talk with your dad and Leon about this weird umbrella I have, okay? I’ll be by tomorrow to start teaching you the fun magic.”

“Taako…” Barry sighed, running a hand over his hair, slicking it further back. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Says the denim necromancer.”

“Hey! Denim’s comfy.” Despite this, the human smiled wide. “What kind of weird umbrella are we talking here, Taako?”  
“Well, Barold, I honestly don’t know.” The elf offered it to him. As Barry touched the handle, an odd look crossed his face. “...What’s that face for?”

“I...I dunno. It just...felt...this is going to sound crazy but, it felt familiar?”

\---

Magnus sighed, coming to waking with a stiffness in his back and knees he had hoped was behind him. He wasn’t old, but he sure wasn’t as young as he had been when he met his wife. Speaking of, he sat up, not feeling her familiar weight as his side. A momentary panic snapped through him before the scent of warm bread and meat brought him fully to wakefulness.

Magnus smiled, slipping out of bed in a hurry to get to the kitchen. Julia was moving the last of the bacon to a plate and finishing up the pile of scrambled eggs. On the table already sat a fresh loaf of bread, a dish full of cinnamon honey butter (she insisted it was the best for breakfast), and carafes of juice, milk, and two mugs of steaming coffee.

He slid into his seat, smiling as she sat in her own, and they both quietly ignored the rocking chair in the corner, coated in a thin layer of dust.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been only a few months, but they were months of relative quiet. That is until Director Davenport called them before him again, to tell them, grimly, that they had lost another member of the Bureau to a murder, but the Relic that Leeman had managed to find and keep safe was still safe, and out of everyday hands. He had managed to send it to the city of Rockport, where he had it locked up for safekeeping on a train, before heading to the pick-up point they had established in Neverwinter. They had to go get it from the safe at the end of the rail line, but since luggage could only be claimed with identification at the end of the rails, one of them was going to have to pretend to be Leeman.

Somehow, on the ride down, that was decided to be Merle.  
\---  
“Well. Shit this is...a problem. There’s a murder, and it seems to be that Jenkins fella.” Merle fussed with his beard, staring at the headless and handless body slumped against the wall, blood splattered almost like paint in the carriage around it.

Magnus sighed, fidgeting with the Stone in his pocket. He wanted to call up, make sure that this was still something they needed to deal with. “We should call for back-up. This could be related to the Relic. Remember how Cap'nport said they make people jump to extremes?”

“...Back-up. On a moving train. And we only have until we arrive at the town to get this relic and solve a murder?” The dwarf shook his head. "We might be able to do one of those things, but probably not both, and not with a train full of people we can't explain this to."

Silence hung in the air for a moment, as the three listened to the clatter of carriages shifting over train tracks. Slowly, Taako spoke up. “Who said we have to solve the murder?”

Magnus sighed, starting to balk. “I mean, they took his hands and we know that the Relic was locked up on this train…I don't think it's coincidence...”

“Not what I meant, Maggie. We got the world's best detective on speed-dial, homie.” They paused, staring at the wizard as he pulled out his Stone of Farspeech, grinning wildly.

"Taako? What do you mean?"

The elf ignored them, tapping on his Stone. The tell-tale click sounded. "Taako?" Barry's gruff voice sounded from the glowing item. "What's up?"

"Get Ango on the line, my man."

"...What? Do I wanna know why?"

"We need a tiny nerd with a love for solving mysteries."

There was a pause, and Magnus started to speak again when Taako flapped a hand at him just as Barry spoke. "Why do you need my son to solve a mystery?"

"Well see, we got this dead body, and your tiny nerdlord reads murder mysteries."

Another pause, and a slow response of "...You're lucky I know you're right, Taako, otherwise I wouldn't let Angus even hear about this. Gimme a second." 

The other end of the Stone sounded muffled, almost like their researcher friend had crammed the Stone into his pocket while going to find his son. 

"Taako, is this a good idea?" Merle barely liked the kid, but then again, Merle was also terrible with children. He was trying with his own two, but couldn't handle them most of the time. It was no surprise that Hecuba had wanted a separation with how little he was home in the first place. It was better for them all, but it still meant that Merle was trash with kids, and Angus was no exception.

"Trust me, Granola Gramps, this kid is smarter than he looks." The elf looked proud, as though Taako himself was the reason for it.

Loud rustling noise started from the Stone in his hand, and the trio stopped their conversation to listen. The high voice that spoke brought a smile to one face, even if the others looked apprehensive at the idea still. "Hello, sirs! Dad said I get to help you guys solve a murder mystery! Those are my favorite kinds of mysteries to read in the Caleb Cleveland books!" Merle groaned softly, only to get elbowed by Magnus. "And the real murders often follow those tropes too. It's real convenient that way, but then politics get involved and it's not so easy anymore."

“Well then you’re just the detective we need, little man. Let’s go over the clues.”

 

\---  
“We got it, Director.” Taako held up the Oculus, and Lucretia froze for a moment. For the briefest second, there was a recognition in Davenport’s eye, and a change in his body language. It was one that spoke of familiarity and confusion at the same thing. He wanted to question where it connected in his mind… “Director?”

And then he shook his head. “Must be the thrall,” he muttered, just soft enough for her to hear. Lucretia breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Fisher's ability hadn't suddenly disappeared.

\---

This was supposed to be just a friendly outing for Midsummer. The festival was supposed to be amazing, timed perfectly with a solar eclipse.

She could see Barry, holding Angus, arms wrapped tight around his son, hoping the boy didn’t see the blacked out sky and the millions upon millions of stark white eyes all twisting about only to hyperfocus in one terrifying instant on them. (In the weeks to come, she would find the boy in one of the many libraries, struggling to stay awake at a table with a single candle lit to read by. He’d tell her he wanted to find out what those eyes are, and she couldn’t tell him...but she also kept his secret, of the night terrors and nightmares that awaited him like they awaited everyone else. Lucretia had done much the same in the weeks following...no. She wasn’t going to focus on that. Still, she wished she could have saved him from those horrifying dreams, glad he didn't know the terror black opal now brought to her.)

She could see Magnus, Merle, and Taako all staring back, in too much awe of what was occurring to really feel fear or anything but surprise at the display. She wondered if maybe she had missed something, missed the memory of the messengers…

The Messengers of The Hunger. 

They had brought another Relic, another piece of The Light of Creation together, and it sang out. 

And it was just enough, just enough between the two, that It--HE knew. 

He had found this Material Plane, and the Light, because just enough of the Relics were together.

She couldn’t tell Davenport. She couldn’t tell him, after what she had told him about how dangerous they were, that they had to not be collected anymore. That they had to separate the two they had.

Lucretia had fucked herself, and this entire plane, over royally.

At least she could do something about it. Time for a new plan. Her plan, from what felt so long ago. She could do it, this time.

She had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has been such a long time coming! I have most of the fic planned out, just haven't WRITTEN most of it yet.
> 
> I also never realized I didn't click "multiple chapters" on the fic when I posted chapter 1...whoops!
> 
> I'm going to do my best to get the rest of this out as soon as I can. There's A LOT to write, with some stuff being crammed in together and some being awfully spread out.


	3. Chapter 3

It was only supposed to be a fun race. And then, out of everything that could have possibly happened, Taako had to watch Merle seduce a vine. They watched two completely star-crossed lovers start to die and become part of a big tree, Taako himself had nearly bit the dust at one point, they had Klaarg nearly kill them, then saved them all (and who knew what happened to the bugbear afterward), and now, after debriefing Captain Bane, something felt...off.

Taako didn't like this, he didn't like that the man's response to losing his lieutenant was to start pouring drinks, calm as can be. Something was wrong. This wasn't right. The chef squinted, feeling this pull of wrong from the bottle. The color of whiskey was...not right. It should have been a deep, almost orange amber color, and this was...not entirely there.

Even Magnus, who preferred mead or cider but would drink any alcohol offered, wasn't taking it. He thought that, maybe, something else was up. Sleep effects couldn't hit elves, and Taako had almost fallen for the Gaia Sash's thrall, and maybe the fighter was worried that it was drugged and Bane was trying to take advantage of that?

Or it was just straight up how pushy the man was being over this. That was super not right. “Just...just take the damn drink!” This wasn't like the Captain Bane they had met outside the Goldcliff Trust, who let them just go in and handle it all. It was like he was another person. Anger was contorting his face. If this was just about having a drink after a long day, no person should have been this...aggressive about it. "Drink it or I make you drink it!"

Taako went stiff, arm whipping up. The Umbra Staff let loose a volley of lights, each slamming into Captain Bain’s chest. A small look of surprise passed over his face as he crumpled forward over his desk, sliding off it as gravity took hold, knocking the glass tumblers over with him. The alcohol seeped down into the wood and carpet.

 “Taako, what the fuck?” Merle gestured wildly. “You just killed the chief of police!”

“He...he was…”

“Merle, can you not?” Magnus spoke softly, but sharp. “Look at him. He’s not okay right now. Just. Give him a bit, okay?” Magnus sounded so far away, even as Taako stared hard at the slow-growing spread of alcohol. It wasn't like he was standing there, it was like he was back in that town, watching in horror at what had happened, at the people slowly gasping, the sounds of retching, and the growing silence, all while someone gripped at his shoulder, trying to pull him away, trying to make him move--

Merle nodded, stepping back. Slowly, Taako’s eyes came back into focus, tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders, breath coming more easily to him. The world no longer felt like it was trying to suffocate him, and his heart wasn’t trying to leap out his throat. “He just...not good stuff going on. It. He just. Was too pushy. Like those sales guys at the fantasy mall, who try to hook you on getting their products that you really don’t want? Or like a guy who just won’t take no for an answer when...when you tell them... It just...I don’t have to explain myself to you yahoos.” He adjusted his hat, knowing more he couldn't deal with the faces his family would make knowing he accidentally poisoned an entire town, or that something in his gut told him that Captain Bane just almost poisoned them too. “Let’s just...go.”

 ---

Magnus collapsed down into one of the overplush chairs in their simple living room. Almost instantly, Julia was there, pressing a cool drink into his hand, and working strong fingers into the tense muscles of his shoulders. The smell of hot steel and charcoal washed over him, undercut with a heady vanilla...a scent so perfectly Julia that it set him at ease immediately, no matter how hard the day.

"Jules," he sighed, "remind me to return the favor after you're done. I know you've been working on orders for Cap'nport and Luce."

"Luce?" Her eyebrows rose up, and he laughed softly. "Magnus, did you honestly just call Lucretia _Luce_?"

He hummed as she dug into a particularly tense spot. "Yeah. I dunno why. It just felt...right. Like that's what I should be calling her from time to time." His wife laughed, and he shoved the thought away. It was just a nickname, right? He wouldn't call her that to her face, not unless he okayed it with her in private first. It wasn't like it was even rude or anything. Just a thing he called her.

"But you're right. I have been working on stuff for them, and the whole base. There's a new expansion going on at the Fantasy Costco, and they promise we'll get a nice family discount for doing so much work for it."

"You're still getting paid for it, right?"

"Magnus Burnsides, who do you take me for? Of course, I'm still getting paid for this. I managed to haggle that deal out of that warlock there." Even just the mere mention of Garfield made Magnus shudder, and she laughed brightly again. "He's so bad at deals sometimes, I can't believe he's a warlock of The Bargain. I could out haggle him any day. And family counts for anyone who's with us when we go in."

He blinked, then burst out into his own bout of laughter. That was his Jules. Clever and tricky, just as she was skilled and determined. "I love you."

"I love you too." The last knotted muscle in his shoulder released, and Magnus groaned in relief. She stepped quickly around the side of the chair, dropping onto the floor in front of him. "Get this knot out of my neck and shoulder, and tell me about what's got you so shook up."

The knot was an old familiar one to them both, coming from spending too much of the day bent over detailing fine filigree by hand instead of using magic or a machine. The tension made moving a certain way feel like hell come to rest in muscle, but Julia took pride in not using magic to make things that delicate and strong. Magnus started light, working his way around to find the knot's edges and core.

"I was down at the Voidfish's tank, giving Captain Bane's...things to Johann. You know, like we do." She murmured acknowledgment as he continued. "It started...singing."

"Singing? I didn't know it could do that."

"Neither did Johann. So it started singing, and when I pressed my hand against the glass, it pressed a tentacle against the glass too, and Johann started playing with it on his violin, and then it started screaming."

"Why would it start screaming?"

"That's just it. We don't know. Johann's never seen it act like that, at all."

Julia grunted as Magnus' fingers worked their magic, and the pain all released. She heaved a sigh of relief, twisting her head this way and that to enjoy the new looseness found there. "Well, if anyone can figure it out, it's Johann. He's been taking care of Fisher for years."

"Yeah, you're right."

"I know I am!" She pushed herself to her feet, turning in place to give him a deep kiss. "C'mon, come help me make dinner." He nodded, smiling sweetly up at her.

"Yeah. Hey Jules, how do you bargain with Garfield? He's just so...loud."

She laughed, pulling him towards their kitchen. "I wear earplugs. It muffles the volume and lets me play being hard of hearing. I just get stubborn, and he folds."

"That's...brilliant and evil."

"I prefer to think of myself as Chaotic Good."

\---

It was Candlenights. It should have been a quiet, good night in, with her whole family, both of a century and her employees now. They should have had time before the next Relic. Lucas should have fucking known better. But still, Lucretia sat up all night, side by side with Barry holding Angus tight, listening in horror as the Stone of Farspeech went dead, and her family's status was left unknown. She hoped and prayed the whole night that they'd call back, let them know they were okay.

She couldn't lose them again, not like this. They couldn't leave this time, not without Angus. It would bring back Lup, but how could she face her friend, her sister, and tell her they fled and left her son? Barry would never forgive her either. He loved his half-elf son, and everyone...

No. They were coming back. They had to. Just as soon as she had all the pieces, she could save them all. Lucretia knew she could.

She just had to have faith.

\---

They made it. They had come back. Carey and Killian made it back, bringing the news about Boyland. Davenport had listened with a solemn expression, nodding and assuring them that they would be the first to know when they fed Fisher his memorial. He waited until the girls had left to whisper to Lucretia that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to find another person to replace him on their squad. Field teams were harder to put together, with the danger of the Relics, despite having the trio of Reclaimers being the ones handling that problem. While teams still wanted to go out and do jobs, they were avoiding ones that were bigger and flashier, more content to do the grunt work than they ever had been before. No longer did members of the Bureau want to go out and find their fame. It was too risky for a bit of glory.

For that, he was oddly thankful. Lucretia understood. He was still a captain, down in the core of all he was, and the employees were his crew. Every loss cut him deeply, thinking he had failed. He never let that show openly, choosing private moments to let himself get lost in the hurt and fears, holding onto his brave face when his crew could see him. They needed an unwavering captain, and Davenport would do his best to provide.

The base was nearly all asleep, the early pre-dawn hours arriving with only a few souls still up. Avi was leaning against the controls for the pods, ready to fall asleep on his feet. He offered a thumbs up and waited for the nod to relieve him of his duty Angus was barely awake, fading fast in Barry's arms. The man was wide awake, having left to make a very caffeinated coffee a couple hours ago, and was ready to keep pulling an all-nighter if he had something else to focus on. Lucretia had a feeling that his focus would be making sure his friends were alright and then putting Angus to bed.

Taako looked like hell. Magnus was exhausted. Merle...was missing a goddamn flesh arm. Lucretia barely muffled a scream of surprise while Davenport started cussing hard enough to tarnish brass. "What the hell happened, Highchurch?"

"Magnus cut off my goddamn arm! Pan lied to me!"

"I saved your life, old man, and that wasn't Pan! It was the Grim Reaper! Your dumb ass grabbed the stupid crystal!" A tired sort of anger washed over the fighter."

Davenport sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I see you have a wooden prosthetic. Does it work?" Merle wiggled his fingers of the wooden arm, showing more dexterity in them than the dwarf had before. "Good. All three of you, go the fuck to bed. Report to me first thing in the morning, give me the debriefing after you sleep."

"Hey, uh. Director?" Davenport turned to Barry, sighing again.

"You're dismissed, Bluejeans. You should have gone to bed hours ago."

"We were...we were worried. Glad to see you guys still kicking." Still, the dismissal brought Barry out of the room, scooping up the sleeping boy.

"Oh, hey. Uh. Director, we got... we got the Relic." Tension built up in the room again as Lucretia and Davenport both turned back to the exhausted trio. In their fears of their friends returning alive, they had forgotten, momentarily, about the reason they went down to Lucas Miller's lab in the first place.

"Where is it?"

"Soooo that's the problem." Taako's sleepy grin made his next statement all the more utterly ridiculous. "Magnus ate it."

Lucretia couldn't be bothered with propriety or appearances. It was such a stupid, so utterly them thing to do, and she was so tired, that all hesitation went out the window. She doubled over, holding onto her stomach, laughing in near hysterics, as she sunk to the floor. Her laugh rang throughout the room, echoing and causing her to laugh harder. Part of her distantly recognized someone asking if she was okay.

It was so obvious that things would have happened like that. She was just so glad that her family, her brothers, were home safe, if just as stupid as they had always been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I should post this as soon as it was done!
> 
> Some arcs are going faster than others, only because I couldn't figure out how to expand it with the changes. The last couple of chapters are going to be H U G E though so I'll make up for it, promise.
> 
> I also had someone ask me the context for what's going on. ;D I promise, one of the chapters gives background and there will be screaming.


	4. Chapter 4

When they had found the time bubble, Davenport had dropped his head into his hands and sighed loudly in the privacy of his office. "Lucretia, what...what are these items even supposed to accomplish? They're ridiculously powerful, and they...why do we have no records of the people who made them? Why isn't there anything about what they are and what they do?" He looked up at her with tired eyes, and she felt a wave of guilt wash over her looking at the gnome. "How could these things exist and no one wrote about it?"

"I...I don't know, sir."

"Why do you know about them, then? You know their names and their powers. How?"

She gripped her staff, not wanting to tell him that the most powerful abjuration item was within her own hands, and unlike everyone else, she couldn't bear to give it away and put it out into the world where it'd do damage to this world. She bore her guilt like a mantle of shame, held it close to her chest. A constant reminder of why she did what she did. "Do...you remember when I asked to go investigate Wonderland?"

The Director paused, and nodded. "You refused to give me a report on it."

"For good reason. One of...the most powerful of the Relics is there. I learned about them in there. Just...when the time comes that we need to send them in there, please, sir. Let me warn them."

The office sat in silence for a few minutes before he nodded. "I can agree with that. Sorry, I shouldn't have brought up bad memories."

"It's okay, sir." Wonderland haunted her, but not as deeply as her own actions did.

\---

"We won't have any communication with you, once you go in there. Dress for desert heats, bring all the equipment you could even think about possibly carrying. Avi's on the ground already, waiting to send you in."

Magnus frowned, something about this tugging at the back of his mind. Something here felt familiar. "So, we're going to be shot from a canon to the ground, and then shot again from another canon into a barrier that may or may not give?"

"Exactly. And on top of that, we don't know what's going on. Everyone in there could be dead, or blissfully unaware of their surroundings. We just. Don't know." For a moment, the Director looked haunted. "I want you to all come back alive and healthy, got it?"

"Not exactly planning on dying today, so Taako's got this."

\---

This was madness. How many times had they relived through these scenes now? At least it wasn't the relic trying to keep them from grabbing it...no, no one here knew that they were living through a loop. At least not consciously. It didn't mean this wasn't tough to deal with. Magnus never again wanted to know what it felt like to die. It was bullshit.

And now, finally, they got down to the core of this, after being blessed by a goddess and fixing all the bullshit that needed to be fixed. Now, he was standing there, staring at this little girl possessed by an item that felt too familiar for him to feel comfortable.

"If you take me, Magnus," it said with her voice, something that was still unnerving despite seeing it happen over and over, "I can change your past."

It was as if he was watching his life on rewind, skipping forward until it hit a wall of static. June's face twisted into confusion, then set back to careful neutrality. Slowly, they crept forward, to his first exhausted steps into Raven's Roost, to his actions in rebelling against Kalen's corrupt rule, and finally over his wedding to Julia. It was honestly the happiest day of his life, and he knew in his heart that life would be better now.

"Jules, come with me." He knew this scene intimately. It was the moment he started to replay over and over, and that's how he knew this Relic was drawing on his own memories, not something it conjured out of the air. "Steven can watch the shop, we're only going to be gone for a month. Please, Jules?"

She laughed, nuzzling against him. "Hmm, I don't know, Maggie..."

"Please? I want to see you there when I win. I want to show the world my amazing wife, the reason I made it. You're my muse, and the world needs to understand why I made it."

She laughed, the sound so sweet, and even in this memory, it made Magnus smile. "Alright, you sweet talker. I already had your things packed, let me pack too."

"You two be careful out there, okay?" Steven Waxmen smiled at them, waving them on their way out the door.

"We will, Dad. You stay safe too."

"What trouble could I get up to?"

The scene froze there, and June turned with sad, mournful eyes. "Magnus, this is the hour of your greatest failure. You brought Julia along. You two had a lovely travel-time. But, as you know now...you returned home to see Raven’s Roost destroyed. Kalen wanted one last shot at destroying what he couldn’t have. Among the dead, your mentor and father-in-law, Steven Waxmen. At the shock, your wife miscarried your first child. The first trimester of pregnancy is a very delicate one. You two, despite your attempts over the last six years, have been unable to try again. You ask yourself, constantly, if you could have done something else, something to save him, and the town. Despite your attempts...Would you take the cup, and try again?”  
  
Magnus paused, looking at the scene before him. The tender look on Julia’s face as she waved back at her father. The home he had lived in with them both, a place that they were planning on living at for the rest of their lives. Their neighbors, now living scattered to the winds, living in fear and dreaming of the destruction and loss. The Hammer and Tongs, their workspace. The place they fell in love, their belongings, everything they had worked to build again. Raven’s Roost, the place where they fought and planned and loved, the place they freed from Kalen’s grasp. Gone. All gone.  
  
“What could I have done?” He asked weakly. “If I had been there, I could have been among the dead too. And Jules...if she was still there...what could have happened to her? I would have lost more.” Still, that didn’t stop him from spending sleepless nights awake, staring at the ceiling playing scenario after scenario, wondering if maybe there had been a way to stop Kalen for good. Had Magnus failed in making Jules hold back the blow that would have killed Kalen? Did she blame Magnus for the loss of her father? And it didn't stop her from waking in the night, sobbing. Some mornings, he found her sitting on the floor, unable to bring herself to sit in that carefully crafted seat and live out the hopes that had died that day as surely as their home was turned to ruins. He kept worrying, uncertain if he could help. The read of her body language was the reason he learned Taako’s tells as well as he did. Anxiety, depression, fear, trauma...they had all carved their own invisible scars on the people he cared about and loved the most, the people he wanted to help protect. People he felt like, sometimes, he had failed a little too much and hadn't done enough to save.  
  
“No, I’m not gonna take it. And I swear, you’re gonna let June go. This little girl deserves to be able to live her own life, damn it. I’ll make sure of it.”

 

The chalice used June's face to smile. "Good, you finally learned that lesson, Magnus. I'm glad."

Before he had a chance to ask what the hell it had meant, her hands went slack, and the Temporal Chalice clattered to the floor with an echoing din.

\---

Town saved, report given, and exhaustion setting in, Magnus got home and immediately headed to the shared workshop. The statue in Refuge...the face had seemed so fucking familiar, and it was driving him nuts as to why. He knew he could see the face, but when he tried to pull it up in memories, it turned to stabbing pain behind his eyes, making the world turn to white noise and buzzing filling his ears. It was annoying as hell but it only happened when he thought too hard on what it could be, or why he couldn't remember. It was annoying and he knew the answer was right there. Maybe...maybe the scrolls June had gave him would hold some answers?

He carefully unpacked them from their case, delicate with his touch in a way that only really came out with Julia. It spoke a level to how important these could be to him. The vellum unrolled to show...plans? Magnus stood, grabbing the weights he used when needing to reference blueprints for his few bigger pieces. A weight was used at each corner, and he stared more intently. These were construction plans. Not just that, but construction plans with several sketches. Sketches that included his own face, and the statue holding the Temporal Chalice.

The plans were even in full color, not the color of the muted red stone statue that stood in the center now. These were the original ideas, including painted stone in bright colors...including the bright red of a jacket with a patch he couldn't read. The patch was much like the one he had found among his things when they had moved up to the Moonbase. Neither he nor Julia had known who had given it to them, where it had come from. She couldn't read it either, but it didn't seem like that bothered her as much as it bothered him. Opening his desk drawer, Magnus pulled out that patch now. He flipped it over, staring at the small patch of bright red fabric still stuck to where the edging of the patch had been sewn in place with tight, tidy stitches.

So what did this all mean? DId it mean that he, Magnus Burnsides, was one of the Red Robes from Lucretia's research? Was he one of these wizards she had warned about? But he was a fighter, and maybe a bit of a rogue thanks to Carey's training to help him be more nimble, definitely not a wizard. He couldn't cast magic, much less enchant a powerful object with one of the most dangerous and powerful magics out there. So, how could he be the same one...and hadn't Lucretia said they were super old? Dead forever, lost to the ages levels of old? No one had their names, and even the research was shaky at best on it...

Something wasn't adding up, and his head was on fire with how bad this headache was now as he fought to get the pieces to work together. He stood, intending to go ask Taako and Merle if they had that static too when June had asked them. Granted, Merle seemed relaxed and Taako was almost giddy with what he had seen, though he hadn't asked them what they had been offered. At the time it seemed like something private just between them and the Chalice, but...maybe there was something more. He could also ask Barry, wasn't he their weird-magic-research dude anyway? He might have been able to look into the weirder things with--

He heard the front door hinge squeak softly, then the frame shake as it was kicked closed. "Mags?" Julia's voice floated in from the front hall. "I got stuff for dinner, wanna come help?" Hastily, he shoved the weights aside, rolling the plans back up and tucking them into the scrollcase as quickly as he could while still being delicate. That and the patch went back into the drawer, where he locked them in out of habit in the days of living off base, where a locked drawer was an easy deterrent for lazy thieves dumb enough to try to break into a workshop.

"Coming, Jules!" He couldn't go out and ask them now. Not when the memories of almost losing her, and of losing Steven were painfully fresh and close to the front of his mind. Magnus needed every moment he could savor with his wife right now. To remind himself that this was the timeline he stuck with, the timeline where at least part of his family survived. That was what mattered the most right now.


	5. Chapter 5

This was it. This was the part she was dreading more than anything else. She had to stand there, with her family, and send them into the worst danger she could think of...but after this, she could make them safe. They'd all be safe again. Just this one last terrifying trial to go.

Davenport stood silently behind her, arms crossed and waiting. She hadn't given him her report and for good reason. Among her usual nightmares, there was the horror that was Wonderland's third round. But she didn't want to tell them all of it. She didn't want to explain her fears, and the worse things she had ever done as a person in there. She left someone condemned, and she never knew what had happened to Cam. He could have been dead, or turned into one of their horrible mannequins, or anything.

Taako, Magnus, and Merle all stood in front of her. Magnus had a wife. Merle had a family. And Taako...she had already taken so much from Taako, and he had his nephew and brother-in-law here, and...

They had to know. They deserved to know.

Once they came back from Wonderland, and she put the barrier around this plane, she would tell them everything. She'd give them the water from Junior's tank, and plead for forgiveness...

But they had to survive first.

"Wonderland...is more than it seems, boys." Boys. Ha. They were all older than her when they had first joined the IPRE. Now, look at them. "You all know I came back older from there, quite literally. There are...a pair of siblings that run Wonderland." She glanced at Taako, worried. Would they remind him of someone he had lost, much like she stood there wondering if it was Taako and Lup she was looking at? "They will take things from you as payment for things, hidden in games. They will make it seem like it was all your own choice and doing. Don't let them fool you. I...I don't know how to get this last Relic from them. The Animus Bell is...it's the most powerful thing you could imagine. They'll use it to offer you things beyond your imagination. Don't listen to them. Please...please, boys."

She didn't know what else to tell them. Wonderland's horrors were unique for each person visiting, though concepts stayed the same. She didn't know how to warn them. She didn't have much information to give.

Lucretia sighed, then ran forward, pulling them all into a group hug. Magnus returned it instantly, while Merle took a moment longer before joining in. Taako squawked indignantly, awkwardly patting people on the back. "Please," Lucretia whispered as she stepped back. "Come home safe."

\---

"Fuck Wonderland." The pain was intense. Okay, intense wasn't giving credit where credit was due. It fucking hurt like goddamn fucking hell. Taako could barely focus, certain there was at least one broken rib, probably more, definitely more than a little bruising, possibly a fracture in his nose...a black eye maybe? But he noticed one thing in particular. A break that wasn't him.

Underneath him, the Umbra Staff had snapped, and fire was streaming from the break. He couldn't tell exactly where the break was, even as he shoved himself sideways, picking up the broken implement. It could have been one of the stretchers attached to the canopy, but it seemed like too much billowing out, bleeding out in a wave of flame. Maybe where the runner met the shaft, snapping where the spring sat? It was a bit of a structural weak-point...he must have hit his head to be focusing this hard on where the break was and not the literal fire pouring from his now fucked-up magic focus.

The room fell silent even as the mannequins feverish audience reactions stilled. Lydia gasped as the fire separated into a woman in a red robe, holding a black shape by the throat. Taako thought, a little woozy from probable blood loss, that she seemed familiar in a way that made his heart soar. Like looking into a mirror, even if that mirror was in the dark and covered in a cloth. Something deep in the core of him recognized her, and the world was right again. 

Though that could have still been the blood loss. It was hard to tell.

"Edward!" The lich reached out, unsure whether or not she should try to grab him from the flaming figure's grasp.

 

"Are you the ones who have been hurting my ####### out here?" The red-robed shape growled, her hand tightening on the shadow that comprised Edward. Taako shook his head, trying to hear through the static. What had she said? "I'm going to fucking kill you now."

With nothing more than a thought, the black shape caught fire, letting out an ear-piercing scream shortly before it faded to ash, blown away on a slight breeze. Before Lydia could scream as well, the red robe reached out her other hand, and the lich caught fire as well. In just as short a time, she too crumpled to ash.

“Idiots. What lich leaves their phylactery on them? Weak game, yo. Weak game.” The red robe turned to them, an impression of a smile burned into the shadows beneath the hood. “Hey, boys. What’s shakin’?”  
And like that, Wonderland dissolved into black smoke, swirling and obfuscating them from each other slowly. Moments passed by in confused silence as others who had been trapped in the nightmare came too, lost and different from how they had been when they had gone in. Taako swore he could see a sad smile on the Red Robe's skeletal face. "They'll be okay. People always find a way to be okay in the end."

For a moment, there was silence in the clearing as the victims left. Slowly, the normal sounds of wildlife returned to the woods of the Felicity Wilds. Birdsong filled the air, calling out that, at last, the danger was gone, and they could resume their lives.

The same couldn't be said of the trio standing with the shadow of a person wrapped in ethereal fire and brilliant red robes in the clearing, holding but a simple bell. The shade seemed to smile softly at The Animus Bell, the most dangerous of all the Relics, almost as if it reminded her of someone she loved. Taako kept wanting to reach for her, to make sure she was real, and he still didn't know why. Sure, Merle had healed them, but maybe he was being a shitty cleric again, and there was still some internal trauma. Instead, he just swallowed all those thoughts. He needed to get his wand from his room now that the Umbra Staff was gone. Speaking of...he looked at his feet, where the broken item now lay. He sighed, carefully picking up the pieces and tucking them in his bag. Maybe he could repair it and make it a nice parasol now, if they couldn't reshape it back into a magical focus.

"Alright, so, listen up boys." The red-robed woman grinned, more an impression of the motion than a visible movement. "I need you to ring up a friend."

"What?" Magnus clutched a hand around the bell a little tighter, staring at her. "Hold the Stone, lady, we don't know you and--"

"Just get Barry on those Stones, Maggie. I sure as hell can't really grab onto one of those bad boys without a lot of effort, and it's not that easy. I'd be more likely to crush it than use it right. Just call him and hold the rock out towards me." Magnus raised one eyebrow out of curiosity, going through the actions without questioning it out loud.

Silence from the stone ended as it crackled with magical energy, and the gruff distracted tones of Barry came through. "Hello? Magnus, what's up? Do you guys need a ride up to the base again?" He paused. "Oh, shit, you were going to that place that scared Lucretia, I-I can go get Avi to drop a pod for you--are you alright, what's--"

"Hey, babe." The impression of a smile turned to a softer, sweeter thing, a note of tender fondness in the lich's voice.

"Uh? Magnus? I--uh. I hate to tell you this, but you're not my type? Also you sound like a girl? Did you get turned into a girl in there? I know Julia wouldn't mind but--"

"That's cuz I'm not Magnus, Bear. It's...it's me. It's ###." Her voice pulled, almost desperate for the want of recognition.

"I. Uh. Wh-what was that? Can these stones get interference? I got...I got static, and I don't...why would a name be static?"

"Barry, honey, listen to me." She floated lower, the faint outline of hands almost cradling the stone in Magnus' hand. "I need you to go into the Director's offices and disable the anti-lich spell wards. If I know Luce, she won't question you making sure the spells are still active and working right. You're the best necromancer there's ever been, on so many worlds, after all. So if anyone could work around anti-lich magic, it'd be you."

"But, I-I'm not a ...what? But I just work theoreticals, not--"

"Barold J. Bluejeans, listen. Just...please? It'll...it'll make sense soon, I promise. Just go do that. And...babe? Tell Angus I love him, and his ###### will be home soon."

"What?"

Instead of answering, she looked at Magnus, who hung up. "Better to answer those questions later. Magnus, let's do this." She turned, taking in Taako and Merle. "Taako, I'm going to shame you for going to the bone zone with tall dark and spooky later. Right now? Guys, we're taking the base. It's go time."


	6. Chapter 6

It's 10 years ago.

We see Lucretia, in her room in the Starblaster, hunched over her writing desk, torn between frantic writing and stopping to cry. She was so tired. They had spent a hundred years traveling to world after world. They had planned, and fought, and lost, and mourned. They mourned so very hard, over and over. How many deaths did they have to have for the hurt to finally stop?

And now, when they had a plan, they thought it was good. It was done, they had finally saved this world by breaking down the Light of Creation into smaller pieces, so the Hunger (John, she reminded herself. He has a name, at the core of it all, and somehow that made it all worse, knowing that it wasn't some faceless monster, but a man lost for his place in the universe) would never arrive. But now, instead of the whole plane being lost, wars happened. Poor Lup, she had just had her son, and they were so happy...until the first reports of the very first Relic War reached them.

She wrote so carefully, destroying only the parts of the mission that had to be forgotten, for them all to be safe. The Relics were scattered. That had to be enough, for now, even if her own stayed hidden within her closet.

First, came the hardest. Davenport. His wouldn't be rushed, couldn't be. The mission was his life, and to destroy all that would be to destroy a brilliant mind and bring a proud man to his knees in humiliation. It took her a better part of that century to slowly wheedle his story from him, to get their Captain to loosen up and talk about himself outside of the IPRE, about his life before there was a mission. His home, his goals, his hopes, and dreams, his fears, his wrath. Instead, she gave him a new mission, written down as if she took those notes for him. After a century of listening to his orders, acting as if he had caught ill and just recovered, with a fever burning his mind oddly numb, she could turn him into a leader who didn't have to hide himself from the world. He could help save it, directing people to the right outlets. He would go from Captain to Director. It was better, safer that way. She carefully wrote out the friendship built, where he went from leader to friend to family to all fo them; plucked out the pieces of The Hunger, setting hem separate from her other work, like an infection that could jump the words from page to page.

Davenport alone took her a better part of a week to write out, plan and carefully snip. He was so important to them all, she couldn't bear to destroy him by doing him any less.

Then came Taako and Barry. She couldn't take Lup from them. Lup was the one person both of them cared for more than anything in the world. She grounded her brother, and raised up her husband. She was the balance they both sorely needed in their lives. Without her, they were lost. Hadn't they seen that on enough worlds? Where Lup was gone? Taako lost his sharp with without the person who knew it best to test against it. His mind dulled, his enthusiasm faded. Lup was his support, his other half. He lived his whole life with her at his side. Without Lup, Barry turned back into an introverted workaholic. He wouldn't be seen for days, his emotions wild even without the necromantic energies within him. He went from the grinning, laid-back Barry who knew how to count cards and tell the best jokes to a man wandering, lost without purpose.

And right now? They were both like that. Men who were half-lost, who were both missing a piece of their soul. They got by, barely, by relying on each other, helping the other raise Angus, a mere infant still in a scary world. Soon, one of them would break, and all three would suffer. It hurt Lucretia deeply, but if Lup hadn't returned still, it was likely she was gone forever this time. Instead of making them forget her, she wrote a new narrative. She disappeared, going to go get supplies for magic components. She had been murdered, and the murderer had gone loose. All that they had known was that she left behind no body, the witnesses had disappeared, and the shock of her death messed with their minds, leaving them unable to remember her name for more than a split second. That way, they wouldn't question why they couldn't speak it or think about it. The headaches caused by Fisher would cut that train of thought short. Better to leave them chasing a phantom murderer than letting them hold out hope that her spectral self would be around, somewhere, trapped. It was a cruel kindness, in its own way. It allowed them closure where none could be had, and a purpose that felt more concrete. Maybe they could still find Lup, in the end. Maybe that brilliant smile, as dangerous and beautiful as a forest fire, was out there somewhere. Still, her careful pen cut out each piece of lichdom transcribed, to remove that one glittering shard of bittersweet hope. Better to be happily surprised at not knowing the truth than bled utterly dry when it cut too deep.

For Magnus, she had to remove Fisher. That was the most important. That hurt in a different way. He had run with the Voidfish under his arm, hoping to save one of a race of creatures unlike anything else. There was little chance it would come with them, but he had to try. Here it was, still happily floating beside her, curious at the scratch of the nib on paper, its egg tucked lovingly into a corner of its tank. Fisher was as close to family to Magnus as the rest of the IPRE team was. He wasn't a man to love with anything less than his entire heart, equally. It was painful, knowing that if he ever discovered what she had done, it would destroy that trust he had given her so earnestly.

And, finally, Merle. What could she do to the cleric that wouldn't change him? Merle had faith and dedication that was only strengthened during their century, and now she was taking that away from him. His learnings, his lessons, the people he inspired and gave faith to when they had nowhere else to turn. He wouldn't remember how he took the most dangerous part of their tasks on himself, entering parlay as soon as a year would start, only to die shortly after, only to get a bit more information, to arm them just a little more. He wouldn't even have the memories of that to bolster him any more. Anyone of faith would falter when looking back and not remembering the good they had done. And what hurt the worst?

He would be the one to forgive her first, the most easily. Out of them all, he would understand.

Lucretia hesitated, pen over a new, blank sheet of paper. Despite transcribing the history of her found family, she never once wrote down her own. She could, now. With that bare thought, the nib danced over page after page, the paper dotted with ink splashes as she wrote faster and faster.

Then, she was done. Her frenzied pace died as the last line lay glimmering on the page. It was written out, her whole story, her identity in a mere few pages. (Could she really call the near novelization of herself a few pages? It was as thick as one of her journals.) The century upon the Starblaster was separate from the rest, self-contained in its own papers. It would be so easy to do the same to herself. Remove all chance of second-guessing herself, the marble of self-loathing she was already trying to swallow past. Remove the knowledge she was about to leave her family broken without them knowing what was done.

She stood, seeing the false dawn outside her porthole window pain the sky shades of peach and indigo. It wasn't long, but this time of day always reminded her of home, with the twin suns lighting the violet sky. Fisher's tank was lit from underneath with similar colors. A testament to home.

But now she had a deed to be done before Taako woke from his trance, a deed to be done while they were all still asleep and she could feign ignorance.

Carefully, she dropped in each crafted page, one by one, tender and heartfelt, ripping away loss, nightmares, fears. Each page fell, and was consumed, hidden away inside whatever mouth Fisher had. Page by page. Memory by memory.

She had two left to go. Herself, and Magnus. Holding her pages close to her chest, she stood on tiptoes, ready to drop it in as a fist pounded on her door. She dropped Magnus' story in the tank in surprise. The knocker stepped in shortly after. Privacy was a thing they honored, but she had forgotten something more important.

It was Sunday. Magnus loved being up early to watch the sunrise and always invited her along every Sunday morning. Normally, Lucretia had to be coaxed out of bed with a cup of tea as well as a loud noise. He paused, a steaming mug in hand, torn between staring at her and watching the pages swirl in Fisher's tank. Watching as tentacles reached out, almost nervously, like the Voidfish knew whose story it was about to consume. Then, like a guilty child caught with their hand in a cookie jar, it grabbed the pages, cramming them upward into the glittering starlit bell.

"Magnus...Magnus, please, this...I-I'm doing this for you. For all of us, please..."

"Lu...Lucretia, what...what have you done? What did..." He staggered, the mug falling to the ground, staining the carpet with tea. The faint scent of jasmine floated up to her. Her favorite.

"I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. Magnus, please, sit down before you hurt yourself." He collapsed, hitting the floor as his mind struggled to fix the sudden loss. This was why she wanted to do this while they were all asleep. Sure, they'd wake up later with headaches, but...

Magnus groaned, losing consciousness, and she sighed. With shaking hands, she turned towards her desk, writing one more line on a scrap of paper to feed to Fisher. Lucretia looked at her own pages, her own story she was going to feed to Fisher to run and hide, to leave them behind where she couldn't hurt them again. She sighed, threw them into a drawer and locked it.

She would live her life with this choking guilt, as a reminder to herself that she did this to free them from the guilt they bore. If only one person in the world remembered the Grand Relics and why they were dangerous, that meant she could keep her family safe from them too.

She could do this. She could help them, even if it meant she was the only one in the world who had known how much they had done for so many other planes of reality, how many people they gave hope to, how many times they died. Even if it meant only she knew the true horrors that awaited them, if The Hunger ever found them.

She would rather let them die than force them to leave.

Lup would never forgive her if they did.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter.

And now, we're in the modern day. Lup's lich-self stared at Lucretia, torn between wanting to hug and strangle her friend and sister. Pools of water tinged with glimmering lights like the ones in Fisher's bell shimmered from where the glasses had fallen. Barry held Angus tight, reaching for Lup with a shaking hand. Lucretia was lucky Taako had no spellcasting focus, for all he was glaring daggers at her. Magnus was hurt and confused, and predictably, Merle had just sighed and said he understood.

"I promised you I would explain everything, but, it's...It's already midsummer, and we saw the messengers and..."

"He's already here, isn't he?" Davenport looked furious, but maintained that outward appearance of calm collection. "Bluejeans, go make sure our people are prepared. I don't want a single soul on this rock to not know what is about to happen." Barry nodded, giving Lup one last desperate look, before scooping Angus up and running with him.

"Dad, what's going on?"

"I'll tell you on the way, bud."

The gnome breathed in deep, trying to get his thoughts together to give the next direction. Lup spoke up. "Good to see you too, Cap'n."

"I'm glad we found you Lup." There was that moment of bittersweet joy in his words. "We need ideas, give them."

The group fell silent. Finally, Lucretia spoke. "I've been...slowly building up a barrier around this plane. Using the Relics to power it."

"Your plan from before?" Magnus remembered that much, and Lup glowed angrily.

"No, Luce, we can't do that plan. It'll kill this plane and everything on it."

"Then what else would you have me do?" The writer clutched her staff, looking weary and afraid.

Taako stepped bodily between the girls. "I have...an idea. Why don't you shape the bubble the other way." Everyone fell silent, before his twin burst out into laughter, doing a small flip in the air with the force.

"That's... Taako, that's brilliant!"

"Uh, duh? It's me, of course it is?"

"Right. You get that ward around The Hunger. We'll need to run a distraction squad." The sound of shattering glass and the sounds of the Voidfish speaking rattled the room. Junior came zipping into the room, spinning in frantic circles. "What? That's--"

Several louder thuds shook the base, even as Junior sped out of the room, verbalizing its own calls to its parent, and soon the screaming sorrowful song of Fisher rocked them all. Davenport reached for his Stone, angrily calling Avi to get him to check the structural damage in Fisher's room, and check on Johann. He waited only long enough to get a reply before hanging up, a moment before a thick black opal pillar slammed down in the center of the room, knocking them all to the ground.

They had no more time to prep. It was now.

The Hunger was here.

\---

They had done it.

Against all odds, they had done it. There were still casualties that cut deep and close to home. People still died, but that was always a chance in a war. Many more could have died. The whole plane of existence could have been lost.

But they had survived.

Perhaps that's why, on the deck of the recovered Starblaster, Davenport exploded. "What the fuck, Lucretia?" The gnome bore down on her, from her place on the deck of the ship. The now powerless staff was tight in her grip, pulling it close to her chest. "No, I get it. I get what you were trying to do. You saw what the relics were doing to us, what they did to Lup, and you wanted to keep us safe. I can understand that. I can respect that. But we're a family, Lucretia. What the hell!"

"I just..."

"You should have talked to us about it. You should have tried to-to tell us a plan. We could have done something else. We could have just gone to get the relics ourselves."

"But, I...I didn't want what happened to Lup..."

The same-said lich floated nearby, intending first to make sure her brother was alright. "Luce, I died because I went to go hide it further. My own damn umbrella had me as a snack. I forgot about the thrall. I was so worried about what could happen to Angus I forgot that one very important part."

Taako chimed in. "You knew about that Craveability, Lucretia. You know the Light makes people want it. That's why Lup went to go hide hers too. Lulu, you're not off scott-free, either, really. You could have brought us." He reached up toward her, sighing and looking worse for the wear. "Even forgetting these idiots, you have me. You think I wouldn't have kicked some ass to keep you safe too?"

"Yeah, yeah, love you too, Koko."

Davenport sighed. "The point is, we're a family, a crew, a team. We...we were handpicked for this mission over a century ago, for being the best our world had to offer. You should have come to us, talked to us. You knew closing off a plane would end the bonds to it...instead of being stubborn and so certain, we could have done something crazy and impossible together." He stared at her, and sighed again. "I'm...I'm still mad, Lucretia. Understand that. I get the why, but I'm mad."

Merle, ever the forgiver, spoke up. "Davenport, I think it's also important to remember that...without her actions, a lot of us could have had very different lives. Magnus might not have ever met Julia."

"I get that, Merle. I really do." Their captain sighed, running a shaking hand through his hair. "But she did this without asking any of us. She betrayed a level of trust in all of us. That century together held so much important information, and she...she fed it to the damned Voidfish, she made it so we forgot parts of ourselves."

"And you definitely deserve that anger." Merle reached out, resting his hand on Davenport's shoulder. "We're not taking that from you. You have every right to hold onto that. Just don't forget what good has come out of this."

Taako looked around, frowning. "Where is Maggie? He was just right here..."

\---

Julia. Before anything else, he had to find Julia.

The people milling around, the cheers and sobs interlacing. It was the rebellion all over again, against...against...whoever it was against. That didn't matter.

What mattered was Julia, and making sure she was safe.

The crowd parted before Magnus, and there she was, standing and laughing with Killian and Carey. She was leaning on her warhammer, the long handle standing upright from where the head rested on the ground. He shouted, he must have been shouting, because she turned to him, and he saw a small streak of blood and a blooming bruise over one eye, but Julia beamed, leaving her hammer as she started running towards him.

Her arms wrapped around his waist, and he laughed as she lifted him off the ground, spinning him around with an ease in strength she only displayed at the forge so openly. They slowed, then stopped, his hands carefully cupping her face before kissing her deeply. "I was so so scared. I thought I'd lose you."

"You'll have to try a lot harder than some interplanar threat to lose me, Magnus Burnsides." He laughed, kissing her again and again, lost in needing to just be with her, to physically hold her. He came so close so often to losing her, and Magnus couldn't imagine how his life could be any different without her by his side.

\---

Barry looked at the spectral form of his wife, eyes filling with tears of joy. "Lup, fuck. It-it's. It's...Let me just, I'll just off myself real quick, so I can hold you again." He was already drawing his wand, readying a spell.

"DAD NO." Angus jumped, hauling down on his arm before turning to look up at the lich that was his mother. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Ugh. God. No, Angus, don't call me ma'am, that's weird, little dude." If she had a body, Lup would have been crying. As it was, she was trying her hardest to hold her husband and son in her arms and not float through them. "We'll figure out a way to get me back into a body."

Lup could have almost watched the gears start turning in both their heads. Angus immediately started rattling off places he could go to inquire about finding such a thing, and none of them were a place a little boy should ever go. At the same time, Barry started spouting all the theoretical necromancy he didn't realize he knew for the last ten years, none of it necessarily a Good-aligned thing, but for all the right reasons. "Boys, boys, calm down." Her laugh rang out. "First I gotta tell Taako's boyfriend he doesn't get to reap us, we're literally good liches. We can talk about how I need my body back so I can make you some sweet ass pancakes later."

Barry's eyes lit up, tears falling freely. "God. I'm glad you're back."

"Glad to be back, Bear."

\---

The world wasn't the same when the Starblaster first reached this plane. It wasn't the same after the Relic Wars, and it sure as hell wasn't the same after 10 years of knowledge lost to an alien jellyfish having a snack. It would never be the same after the Day of Story and Song, but now it was their home.

Wounds would need to heal. New lives would need to be forged. Trust would need to be earned again, and some would never be the same again.

We see Lucretia, pulling out her old journals from their hiding place in her room aboard the Starblaster. They're dusty, after a decade of sitting abandoned in the hidden space beneath her floorboards. Her careful hands dust off each book, one by one. One by one, her journals, the ones she hid after she carefully rewrote everyone's narrative, were placed back where they belonged, on a shelf where she could see the silver scrollwork embossed into each one's spines, detailing their century she had stolen from them. A new one, not the same leather or silverwork, but a close approximation from the new plane's crafts, sat beside the last one, the one she started during cycle 99. This one was merely the last decade, written in snippets and code out of fear someone would figure it out, even with the Voidfish.

She sat at her old desk, running a hand over the thick dust that obscured the deep ebony wood with a grimace. She let the ship linger so long. Even still, without other scents to wear it down, her room still smelled like spilled jasmine tea. At long last, she pulled out a key and unlocked the drawer that hid her own pages, the ones she was afraid of feeding Fisher. Now, there was no Fisher, or Junior, to feed them to. Perhaps they returned to their own plane, now freed from The Hunger...from John. Perhaps that was the secret of how they could bring Fisher along in the first place: that the Voidfish could just travel between planes of existence at will. She would never know, now.

For a brief moment, she remembered herself as a younger woman, panicked and desperate, ready to give up her memories out of guilt.

Lucretia stood, shutting the drawer with a firm hand.

She had written herself a path, and she would feel guilty for likely the rest of her life. She could apologize forever, but running away wasn't her style, not anymore.

She would walk this road she had written with her head held high, and do her best to repair the world and help her friends.

It was the way the bright-eyed, shy scribe from over a century ago would have said was the only way forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me through the entirety of this fic.  
> It started as a Denny's conversation about 5 months ago, and has turned into my longest fanfic yet.  
> I did my best to be true to the characters, even with this alternate universe, and it turned into me really admiring the NPCs a little harder.
> 
> PLEASE leave a comment, even if it's just so much as a "I liked this", even if you've already left a kudos. Nothing spurs me onto writing more than comments!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading along. <3 And never forget...
> 
> You're going to be amazing.


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